The Gospel of Jeremiah - Part 1
By Pastor Ben Spalink
I’ll admit: for many years, the prophets were my least favorite part of the Bible. I found them boring and inaccessible. Reading them as an adult, I find them terrifying. Not only that, but I struggle, even as a seasoned pastor, to reconcile the prophets’ images of God’s wrath with the loving God I grew up hearing about. So much of Jeremiah is doom and gloom, vengeance and burning wrath. One might be tempted to ignore its message completely. Re-reading Jeremiah recently, however, I’ve come to appreciate how clearly the Gospel actually comes through. And when I say the Gospel, I mean literally the good news of salvation, grace and God’s love. The God of Jeremiah is a reconciling and purifying God with immense patience who desires to see his people restored. This blog will be in two parts. Part 1 will explore the Gospel as confrontation of sin, and Part 2 will show the immensity of God’s grace.
A brief overview of this prophetic book:
Jeremiah was written during the span of years leading up to the Babylonian exile of Jerusalem.
Jeremiah predicts the destruction of Jerusalem and then records his prophetic ministry during and after the destruction.
He was commissioned by God at a young age to preach destruction to the leaders of Jerusalem. He claims to be a child (Jeremiah 1:6).
God gives him a series of visions and messages to deliver to Jerusalem. Jeremiah sees divine visions accurately (1:12), making him a reliable and trustworthy prophet.
He prophecies the destruction of Jerusalem at the hand of the Babylonians (1:14), the people from the north. The wrath-filled message of Jeremiah is harsh. By this point in Israel’s history, God is done with giving second chances. Destruction is imminent and unstoppable. God will not relent (4:28, 7:15-20, 11:11, 23:20).
Why is God so angry? Why the wrath? Understanding this is key for Jeremiah’s continued relevance for us today. We tend to think of wrath as a negative attribute. But God is a righteous and holy king. His wrath is purely justified and appropriate. God’s wrath is derived from his love of what is beautiful and perfect. It’s a response to perversion, to injustice and to insolence. When someone defaces our property we feel angry and indignant. I felt this way when graffiti artists repeatedly tagged my church in New York City. Things like child sex abuse arouse our ire even more. Even hardened criminals hold child molesters in special contempt. Wrath is the appropriate response to abuse of the powerless and vulnerable. This is righteous wrath, and it desires to see wrong punished and justice maintained.
Jeremiah has many charges to levy against the Israelites. Where to start? What comes up time and time again are the following:
Idolatry, burning incense, praying to, sacrificing to and worshiping foreign gods (Jeremiah 1:16, 2:5, 2:11, 3:13, 9:14, 32:35, )
Detestable leadership: false prophets, corrupt priests and evil kings (2:8, 5:5, 5:31, 6:13, 8:10, 23:11)
Forsaking God, their first love; unwillingness to submit to God’s law and covenant (2:13, 2:19, 2:20, 2:27, 2:32, 5:11)
Complete unwillingness to repent despite repeated warnings (5:23, 6:15, 7:13, 7:25-27, 25:4, 32:33)
Hypocritical superficial religion; the pretense of repentance (3:5, 3:10, 5:2, 7:4, 7:9-11)
Rampant immorality, social corruption and injustice (5:7-8, 5:26-28)
Jeremiah is horrified when he sees what God will do. He himself laments: “Since my people are crushed, I am crushed; I mourn, and horror grips me. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people?” (Jeremiah 8:21-22 NIV)
Does God have justification to exile his people? Is his great wrath a mark against him? We will agree - expectations are spoken and agreed upon. All the way back in Exodus, God rescued his people from Egypt and made his expectations clear. He also warned them repeatedly that if they violated the covenant, they would be expelled from the land. In Deuteronomy 30, God called Heaven and Earth as witnesses, that if Israel violated the covenant and served false gods, certain destruction awaited (Deut 30:17-18). On this ground alone, God was within his rights to exile his people. The people vigorously consented and agreed to uphold the covenant. But each successive generation they strayed further and further from the agreement. When you read the list of accusations God brings against his people in Jeremiah, what really stands out is not God’s wrath but his patience. It’s astonishing God tolerated the people for as long as he did when they stood in blatant violation of the covenant.
If I am a potter, and I make a clay pot for a certain purpose, and that pot cracks and is no longer suitable to use, am I not within my rights to destroy the pot and make a new one? Israel is God’s pot, and he is the potter (18:6). The painful reality of Jeremiah is not the anger and wrath of God, but that Israel so blatantly disregarded God and his covenant. The nation, which was intended to be a glorious instrument of and display of God’s presence, love and righteousness, had fallen so far short. God had intended for Israel to be an earthly embodiment of Heaven to display God’s glory to the nations (In 3:17, Jerusalem replaces the ark of the covenant as God’s throne and seat of honor). God made a deal with Israel: “I’ll bless you, increase you, honor you, protect you, and hold you as the apple of my eye. The whole world will come to you and be jealous, and will ask you about me” (see, for example, passages like Genesis 12:2-3, Deut 4:7-8). It sounded like a good deal. The only caveat – Israel would have to forgo relationships with foreign gods and live out God’s commands. They failed time and time again. Because of his patience and love, God warned and gave them multiple opportunities to return to him. He sent prophets - but they killed the prophets. He gave warnings through the Assyrians. Jerusalem ignored what happened to the northern kingdom. When God decided to reject Israel, to exile them, and to hold their sins against them, he was well within his rights. It was past time and overdue.
It’s hard as modern people to believe our sin rightly incurs the wrath of God. Perhaps we’re too quick to jump to God’s love, or perhaps we’re inoculated from the concept of personal responsibility for sin because our culture of expressive individualism makes our personal desires and affinities sacrosanct. But the Bible is clear: God is righteous and holy, and we do not have a right to withhold from God what is his. He is fully deserving of our total life commitment, our obedience, our honor and worship. Submission to false gods, whether actual idols or heart idols like wealth, power and status (good things that we give ultimate status), is a blatant offense against God. Like Israel of old, all people are made in the image of God and are meant to be living embodiments of his glory, goodness, faithfulness and love. When we submit to idols, hate our neighbors and pervert justice, we not only hurt ourselves, but we fail to attain our created purpose. Sin incurs wrath. Wrath is justified. Wrath is good, for God is God, and it shows his prerogative to set things right.
Jeremiah helps us see the seriousness of sin and our need for salvation. Next week we’ll see how Jeremiah, the prophet of wrath, is actually a prophet of grace. Praise God that exile is not the final word. His wrath serves a redemptive purpose.
Questions:
What is your personal reaction when you hear about God’s wrath against sin?
How can appreciating the seriousness of sin and idolatry actually help you in your faith?
How might understanding God’s wrath against sin enhance your understanding of what Jesus did on the cross?